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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Monday, June 27, 2011

OLL LEWIS: John Palmer 'Crocodile' sighting: Sat 25/06/2011

John Palmer (35), his wife Natalie (29) and their son Caleb (5) were on a family outing to Sharp Ness Canal in Gloucestershire on a warm but overcast Saturday, 25th June, when they saw something very unusual.

Their son had misheard the name of the canal and thinking he was visiting a place called Shark Ness, was eagerly pointing out what he thought may be shark fins to his parents. Thinking it to be just the imagination of a child at play, they didn’t pay it too much mind until around half past 12 when Caleb said:


“Daddy, it’s a crocodile.”

John looked over to where his son was pointing to humour him not really expecting to see anything out of the ordinary but sure enough, Caleb was right! There was a crocodile basking on the top of the water. John Palmer estimated the creatures length to be between 4 ½ and 5 feet long and Natalie estimates the creature was 6 feet in length. The head was estimated to be about 10 inches in width.

Although some sightings of crocodiles made in Britain are misidentified pike, which have similar colouration and share the crocodile’s habit of basking at or near to the surface of the water during warm days, John is adamant that the creature he saw was not a pike not only because he was able to see the animal’s feet, head and bumpy back clearly, but also because he has fished in the canal for 20 years and knows exactly what a pike looks like. When the creature swam off and submerged it did so in a manner that reminded John of the way newts swim rather than any fish.

John was quite concerned as he had seen the creature very near to the rowing club so he reported his sighting to the skipper there who informed John that it was not the first time this creature had been seen in the vicinity and that a similar beast had also been seen by a gate keeper further up the canal. Several years ago a bridge keeper named Richard Lacey saw a crocodile near Steller’s Bridge. This may be the sighting the skipper alluded to, which was investigated by Andy Stephens on behalf of the CFZ. Andy’s investigation can be found here: http://www.cfz.org.uk/expeditions/03croc/gcroc.htm
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